


A Summer Ball

by adozenbottledtales



Category: Le Comte de Monte-Cristo | Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
Genre: Edmond is an idiot, F/M, Happy Ending, Love, Mercedes is not, That damn garden scene, i'm not over it, maybe whomp?, whomp
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-19
Updated: 2020-01-19
Packaged: 2021-02-27 06:35:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,301
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22322668
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/adozenbottledtales/pseuds/adozenbottledtales
Summary: Since nobody else is writing this, I hecking will.Edmond is at Fernands ball, Mercedes recognises him. Edmond is an idiot and Mercedes is not having it.I swear it's softer than this, I'm just mad I had to write it.Mercedes talks Edmond out of ignoring her, softness and happiness ensues.Also; Haydee who?
Relationships: Edmond Dantès/Mercédès Mondego
Kudos: 27





	1. Chapter 1

The Countess flung the grapes into the nearest thicket, with a gesture of despair.

"Inflexible man!" she murmured. Wringing her hands the Countess kept walking, her shoulders set, only the constant movement of her hands betraying her distress.

"Countess?" Upon Monte Cristo's prompt the Countess spun around and stepped back up to him. It was impossible to tell whether he recoiled from the speed of her advance or the cold burning desperation nestled only in her eyes.

"We are quite alone, Count, so I implore you to be as truthful as your heart and your past allows." The Count's face hardened and something was lost that Mme de Morcerf could only now recognise as vulnerable affection that is was gone. This gave her courage even as he stepped back and stilled her hands with a reserved touch.

"You seem distressed. Would you rather we return inside were we can attend to you?" Mme de Morcerf smiled and twisted her hands so that she was now holding his, holding him in place in the garden.

"The only distress to be attended to needs nothing but your words as an answer to questions that have been burning on my tongue for twenty years." The Count made another courteous attempt to distance himself from Mme de Morcerf, trying to flee her steel gaze, but her hands held his firmly betraying a strength that came from work not suited to her position.

"Madame," he began, but she cut him short, placing a finger on his lips, still staring into his eyes. When she spoke again, her voice was low and even out here in danger of drowning in the soft murmur of the crowd.

"Fernand said you'd been executed," she said, her voice trembling with distress long past but never forgotten. The Counts shoulders set and her looked upon her coldly.

"Madame, I do not know what you speak of. Please allow me to return you to the Viscounts side."

"Why didn't you return?" Mercedes continued as if he'd never spoken. At this the Count snapped and finally the blank composure dropped to reveal damp fury coiled around a broken heart. The sight of which took her breath away.

"And return to what? The grave of a father dead of grief. The office of a man ruined by the greed of other men, yet kind to the very end? Or the empty house of a woman with a free heart, who chose to pass it on?" It was all Mercedes could do not to smile. Tears welled in her eyes and her grip on his hands softened. He was free to go. He did not.


	2. Escape

"You're alive," she whispered, and he did not move. The anger did not dwell from his eyes, neither did the pain from his heart. But he did not leave.

"The man you knew is long dead, Madame. He died within the walls of the Château d'If, and then again when those he loved moved on." 

At this Mercedes smiled, glancing down at their intertwined hands and then back up at the eyes she knew so well, those eyes she would remember anywhere.

"Then Edmond Dantes is alive. He has been alive within my heart all these years, and finally God has in all his kindness shown him the way out to stand before me." Edmond grimaced, but he did not dispute her, which was all that mattered.

"I assure you, kindness has nothing to do with it." A moment of silence fell between them and Mercedes glanced down at their hands, traced the path of time over his skin. She found a scar she didn't know and found it curious how Edmond, whom she knew so well, had found her in this body of a man so much colder and so much stronger who only vaguely resembled him.

A smile graced her lips when she looked up once more and she recognised something of Edmond in the hints of awe in his eyes upon seeing it.

"Count, may I be so bold as so suggest a daring escape from this estate. An adventure to align spirits the world has torn apart and asunder." The melancholy never quite left his face, but he too smiled and bowed.

"I pray, Countess, share with me the details of this thrilling tale, and I will do all within my power to help it spring to life." Mercedes smiled and took a step back, never quite letting go of his hand as if he may vanish should she loosen her hold on him. The music from the ball lazily drifted through the garden and embraced them like the cooling summer night. Mercedes took a step with the music and the Count, as if on instinct, as if the dance was more in his blood than in his mind, followed her lead.

"It's a tale of two lovers, their love as deep as to rival that of plays and tragedies. They love deeply and fearlessly, unsuspecting of the world that is about to tear them apart. He vanishes, swallowed by the darkest night in their lives, and she grows desperate, making the greatest mistakes of her life in efforts to protect all that remains of him." The Count twirled her around in time with the music, his hands leading her through the music as her words lead them through their past. Shadows of pain and anger haunted his eyes as he spoke, his voice soft and barely audible over the grind of their steps on the pavement.

"That's a very dark tale you're weaving, Madame." Mercedes smiled.

"Yes. But all good endings need tragedy to rise from. I implore you to bear with me, their fates will soon turn." Mercedes turned with the music until she was facing him again, her eyes searching his face with a knowing empathy that had the Count shudder. "They find each other once more." 

She looked into his eyes and stopped, her inquisitive gaze having found something he hadn't even shown. "Or, he finds her. He comes in the disguise of the years flown by, a brittle mask and a see through cloak, but it's enough for those who don't look for a man they all know is dead." 

A bitter smile tugged at his lips and he moved to spin her around once more, breaking the spell of her eyes on his, her gaze on his soul, but Mercedes stopped dancing and caught his hands, holding him before her. "But what he doesn't know is that she never did stop looking, never could quite bring herself to believe what the world told her was true, for she would not have survived that blow." The Count raised a hand and she allowed him to tug a strand of hair behind her ear, her breath shuddering at the touch. "She recognises him. She recognises his eyes, and his voice, his steps and everything else. Wonders how she ever missed it. And she forces him to relent."

At this the Count's smile loses all its bitterness, all its melancholy. There is nothing but relief and gratitude on his face. "And together they flee. He takes her captive and they flee to the carriages, taking the one which the fastest horses. They flee to his home and then the end of the world. They hide in castles and magic caves, on fairy courts and dragons lairs, far away from the world that ever dared tear them asunder."

The Count beamed at her and Mercedes' heart caught in her throat. Even now she'd been resigned to seeing that smile only in her dreams. "An enchanting tale, Madame. And I believe my carriage is that with the fastest horses." Mercedes giggled and took his hand in hers, lacing their fingers together.

"Well then, let's flee."


End file.
